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TYLER — The larger-than-life story of Heisman Trophy-winning Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel is a roller-coaster ride that defies belief — until you get to know the rest of the Manziel family.

Years before Johnny Football, there was the Syrian Kid, an oil fortune and family members accused of crimes.

Manziel's great-grandfather, Bobby Joe Manziel, was a bantamweight boxer born in Lebanon who sparred and became friends with heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey.

Manziel retired from boxing and moved to East Texas in the 1930s to try his luck in the oil fields as a wildcatter. Almost broke, Manziel asked Dempsey for $400 to drill for oil on the grounds of the Negro New Hope Baptist Church in Gladewater.

The well was a gusher. Dempsey later said that $400 gamble was the smartest investment he ever made.

Like most East Texas oil barons at the time, Bobby Joe Manziel settled down in Tyler, where the family became a household name long before the rest of Texas heard of Johnny Football.

“It's a fascinating family,” said Sam Kidd, treasurer and office manager of the Smith County Historical Society in Tyler. “There are probably more legends about the Manziels than there are actual things in writing.”

But the legends haven't always been positive. One reason Johnny Manziel's parents decided to move the family to Kerrville during his seventh-grade year was to shelter him and his younger sister from the notoriety that at times swirled around the Manziel name.

The move occurred after a federal grand jury indicted a relative for a drug offense in 2002. During the same time period, Manziel's grandfather, who is close to him, was charged with DWI, evading arrest, interfering with the duties of a public servant and bribery.

San Antonio defense lawyer Gerald Goldstein said the bribery charge against Manziel's grandfather was the result of overzealous authorities who based their case on an unreliable snitch.

Johnny Manziel isn't responsible for the actions of his relatives. But Manziel comes from a family blessed with wealth and talent — yet can't stay out of trouble. In a recent feature story published by ESPN The Magazine, Manziel's father, John Paul, acknowledged that he was concerned about his son's anger issues, his drinking and his struggles dealing with celebrity.

“Yeah, it could all come unraveled,” Manziel's father said. “And when it does, it's gonna be bad. Real bad.”

In the latest controversy surrounding Johnny Manziel, ESPN's Outside the Lines revealed the NCAA is investigating whether he was paid thousands of dollars by an autograph broker in January for signing photographs and sports memorabilia in Miami.

If the NCAA investigation finds that Manziel violated a ban on college athletes accepting money for promoting the sale of products, he could be ruled ineligible to play.

The Manziel family did not return phone calls for this story. In March, before the NCAA controversy erupted, Johnny Manziel discussed the benefits — and the challenges — of being a college athlete who comes from a life of privilege.

“There's such a stereotype around student athletes,” Manziel told the San Antonio Express-News. “If you're doing anything that costs any money or anything else, regardless if you were doing it before, people want to make a controversy out of that. It's hard.

“They can't come to grips with the fact I've been blessed with family members or whatever who've had these (financial) opportunities, and I've always been able to do this.”

The earnings of the privately held companies owned by the Manziel family aren't available to the public. But the estate of Dorothy Manziel, Bobby Joe's widow and Johnny Manziel's great-grandmother, was appraised at $3.9 million in 2005 after she died, according to probate court records reviewed by the Express-News in Smith County.

The appraisal of the estate might be less than its actual value because of discounts for estate-tax purposes. Dorothy Manziel also established a living trust before her death with assets that weren't included in the estate and weren't reported.

This summer, A&M President Bowen Loftin said much of the public criticism against Manziel is undeserved.

“Johnny is part of a family that has resources,” Loftin said. “People criticize him for showing up at NBA games and flying in private aircraft occasionally, but it's all being done because his family can afford to do that.

“Most football players don't come from that kind of family, most I know anyway,” Loftin added. “They don't have spare money to throw around on these kinds of things. But Johnny does.”

The Syrian Kid

More than 20 years after Bobby Joe Manziel struck oil in Gladewater, a newspaper reporter visited the oilman at his ranch house outside Tyler.

It was the summer of 1956, and Manziel smoked a cigar as he held court with the visitor. From his office, they could see his herd of Santa Gertrudis cattle, some of which were presented to Manziel by Richard Kleberg of the King Ranch.

Outside another window was Manziel's own breed of fighting gamecocks, called Manziel Grays and Reds. He owned 1,200 birds in all, and flew the contenders by private plane to states where cockfighting was still legal.

But he seemed most proud of a picture of an old-time boxer hanging on a wall.

“There I am,” he said in a news story published by the Victoria Advocate on July 12, 1956. “Bobby Manziel — the Syrian Kid.”

Manziel loved to talk about his boxing days with the legendary Jack Dempsey. One time, a “tough guy” challenged Dempsey at the top of a flight of stairs.

“I got down behind him. Dempsey hit him on the chin and you should have seen him roll down those stairs,” Manziel said with a laugh.

Manziel had an uncanny ability to find oil where others dug dry holes. After Gladewater, he drilled the first discovery well in 1940 that proved there was a bountiful supply of oil in the Hawkins Oil Field north of Tyler in Wood County.

He went on to discover nine oil fields and named many of them after his children, including his son Norman Paul, who would become Johnny Manziel's grandfather.

Bobby Joe boasted earning $5 million a year in oil revenue — about $43 million in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation. The wildcatter also was buying real estate and had purchased two hotels.

Manziel was in the middle of his latest real estate project — construction of a $3 million domed coliseum in Tyler to host sporting events. It was a testament to Manziel's father, Joseph, who immigrated to the United States when Manziel was a baby.

“I'm positive there will be plenty of use for this coliseum,” Manziel told the visiting reporter. If not, he joked, his kids could play in it.

Four months later, a TV station in Tyler put out a call for blood donations to help Manziel, who was suffering from an illness and massive hemorrhaging at Mother Frances hospital.

Two days later, Bobby Joe Manziel died at 51.

The millionaire left behind a widow and seven children, and had no will.

“It was a huge funeral,” said Mary Jane McNamara, 89, who got to know the Manziel family through the church, where they were devout Catholics and generous donors. Manziel's death was a shock to everyone, she said.

“It was terribly important in the petroleum community, and you know, the petroleum community was the money that ran everything for a long, long time,” McNamara said.

The oil baron's widow, Dorothy, was in her 30s. She had gone to school at Louisiana State University and married Manziel in Baton Rouge. Several of their children, including Johnny Manziel's grandfather, were minors at the time of their father's death.

Eight days after the funeral, Dorothy Manziel filed a court motion in Smith County to oversee her husband's oil and gas properties and real estate ventures — and pay the outstanding debts and estate taxes. The process took years — the court filings filled 12 boxes at the Smith County clerk's office.

In 1960, Dorothy Manziel filed a final accounting of the estate and what each heir would receive.

The total estate was worth almost $1.6 million — about $12.5 million in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation. Dorothy Manziel allocated half to herself. The rest she shared equally with her six children and a daughter Manziel had fathered in a previous relationship who was later adopted by Manziel's mother.

Before his 18th birthday, Norman Paul Manziel — Johnny Manziel's grandfather — was allocated a share of the estate worth more than $110,000, or about $900,000 in today's dollars.

But the dream of building a 60,000 square-foot coliseum in East Texas remained unfinished and stayed that way for years. The shell of the brick and steel building sat empty on the outskirts of Tyler. At one point, it was used to store grain.

Then one of Bobby Joe Manziel's sons, Bobby Joe Jr., moved his auto-parts business inside the cavernous structure and hinted bigger plans were afoot. In 1981, he resumed construction of the coliseum to fulfill his father's dream.

Manziel dubbed it “The Oil Palace,” and today a replica of a tall oil derrick greets visitors at the entrance. The palace opened on Oct. 27, 1983, with a performance by Barbara Mandrell, and still is in business today as a concert and event venue.

'A lot of money'

A wildcatter's stroke of luck and a widow's business acumen are the main reasons why Johnny Manziel drives around campus in a black Mercedes.

Dorothy Manziel died on Sept. 8, 2003 at 85.

A 2005 inventory of her estate filed at the Smith County courthouse was a roadmap of the family's businesses and properties. Dorothy Manziel owned a percentage of the Oil Palace, oil and gas firms and other business partnerships.

She also owned a home valued at $375,000 in 2005, a $230,000 lake house, $40,000 in jewelry, a Lincoln Town Car, and four used Cadillacs.

One firm, the Manziel Family Rental Partnership, Ltd., owns dozens of properties in Smith County that are mostly used for office and commercial space. Dorothy Manziel owned a percentage of that partnership worth $69,000, which put the firm's value at $6.9 million.

A securities partnership owned by the Manziel family was appraised at more than $6.5 million, with Dorothy Manziel owning a percentage.

The actual value of the businesses could be worth more. In probate court, appraisals of an estate's value can include discounts for tax purposes.

The oil holdings were worth less than the family's other business ventures. Two Manziel firms were active oil operators, and their production must be reported to the Texas Railroad Commission. The family also can invest in wells operated by other firms, and they don't have to report that production.

From 1993 to 2013, the Manziel companies produced 48,000 barrels of oil. Dorothy Manziel's shares in one of those companies were appraised at almost $150,000 in her probate case.

Dorothy Manziel also owned an interest in another firm, the Manziel Family Oil and Gas Partnership, Ltd. The total appraised value of the partnership was $1.3 million.

“It's not Garth Brooks money,” Manziel's father told ESPN's magazine, describing the size of the family fortune. “But it's a lot of money.”

Legal trouble

Despite the wealth — or perhaps because of it — some members of the Manziel family had troubled lives. They gambled, enjoyed cockfighting and occasionally ran into trouble with the law.

Johnny Manziel's mother, Michelle, told author Josh Katzowitz that the stigma surrounding the Manziel name was one reason why she and her family moved to Kerrville.

“People prejudged us there,” she said in Katzowitz's book, “Johnny Football.” “People would know me, and I had never met them before in my life. I hated that. I didn't want my kids to ever be affected by it.”

In the 1960s, federal authorities arrested Bobby Joe Manziel Jr. for participating in a confidence racket. He and a partner tricked a man into thinking he was investing in a counterfeiting scheme, when in fact they were simply pocketing his money. They were convicted in a federal district court for illegal possession of altered currency.

In 1980, Bobby Joe Jr. was arrested again — this time in connection with a capital murder case. Two men accused of killing a shop owner in Tyler years earlier had told authorities that Bobby Joe Jr. brought them to Tyler to commit the heist.

Manziel denied the allegation and the murder charge was later dropped, which upset retired Texas Ranger Stuart Dowell, who had investigated the case. Dowell told the Dallas Morning News that he was told by the district attorney's office in Smith County that Manziel had passed a lie detector test. Dowell complained no authorities had actually witnessed it or seen the results.

Dowell said he had also been approached by a man who offered him $100,000 to drop the charge against Manziel. “I was told that they knew where my daughters go to school, where my friends were, and they were willing to spend $100,000 to make this go away,” Dowell told the newspaper.

In October 2002, Bobby Joe Jr. faced another federal charge: conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.

The federal drug case involved a family acquaintance-turned-informant who was secretly taping the Manziels for the FBI. The informant recorded Bobby Joe Jr. agreeing to the drug deal. Then he turned his attention to Johnny Manziel's grandfather, Norman Paul, who was dealing with his own legal problems at the time.

Johnny Manziel is close to his grandfather. When Manziel won the Heisman Trophy last year, he thanked him for practicing Hail Mary passes with him as a boy.

Manziel famously posted an online video saying he always wanted to go 100 mph on a boat — and apparently was doing just that on Lake Tyler with his grandfather at the wheel.

Texas has no speed limits on bodies of water, but it's unlawful for a boat owner to “operate at a rate of speed greater than is reasonable and prudent or greater than will permit him to bring such boat to a stop within the assured clear distance ahead.”

In 2001, Manziel's grandfather had been charged with DWI, evading arrest and interfering with a public servant. He was sentenced to a form of probation — but authorities revoked it after they received the informant's tapes from the FBI and claimed the recordings showed Norman Paul Manziel bribed someone to perform court-mandated community service on his behalf.

Norman Paul, who had no idea he was being recorded, was charged with bribery. He defended his innocence and appealed the case but spent time in jail for a lesser charge of tampering with a witness, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Goldstein filed court documents challenging the credibility of the FBI informant, who turned off the tape recorder at crucial moments. Goldstein said prosecutors also failed to provide tapes with exculpatory information that showed Norman Paul fully intended to complete his community service.

“My impression was, this was not East Texas' finest hour in terms of effective law enforcement,” Goldstein said.

The NCAA probe

It wouldn't be the last time a Manziel was around people harboring their own agenda. In the past, Johnny Manziel complained of being swamped by autograph requests, and he said a memorabilia dealer on one occasion tried to finagle his way into Manziel's hotel room, asking him to autograph numerous items.

The Manziel family hired El Paso lawyer Jim Darnell to deal with the NCAA investigation. Darnell said he's confident his client will be cleared and hopes the autograph controversy will be resolved before A&M's first game against Rice at the end of the month.

An anonymous autograph broker told ESPN last week that Johnny Manziel was paid $7,500 for signing approximately 300 mini-and full-sized helmets in January. The broker played two cellphone videos for ESPN showing Manziel signing the memorabilia.

In the videos, Manziel said, “You never did a signing with me.” If the broker were to tell anyone, Manziel said he would refuse to deal with him again in the future. The video doesn't show any money changing hands.

In Tyler, people are rooting for Johnny Manziel, who shares the acuity and talent of the great-grandfather who originally made the Manziel name famous.

They're hoping this Manziel makes news for the right reasons — and not the wrong ones.